30:42 S 00:09E
Tales of Amok's Adventures
Mike Jones
Sat 20 Feb 2010 16:21
All was quiet and dark as a dead black cat in a coal mine, when I slipped me chains for a wander about the moonlit deck, after stubbing me toe on a bollard and getting garroted by the girls washing line complete with smalls, I retired hurt to the after wheelhouse to have a fettle and a fink...
It just popped into me 'ead, (must be the drugs), "Greenwich ?" I thought, where for art thou and whence you go me beauty??
Greenwich Meridian, that (vertical) line of longitude that is 000 degrees and 00 minutes, Western hemisphere to the left and Eastern hemisphere to the right, joined at the back by a zip, a not-so-straight International Date line.
Those of you who had a Terry's chocolate orange for Xmas will know what I am going on about.
Well, we have been meandering down the Greenwich meridian, just in the Western hemisphere, by a couple of miles, for quite a few days since we left St Helena (10 days) and we have now gone passed 30 degress South, heading for iceberg and pingu country.
A less than casual look at the chart made me realise that we were closer to Tristan de Cunha than to the hot spots of Cape Town.
This got me thinking (steady boy) about Greenwich. Technically, our European friends wish for it to be called UTM (Universal Transverse Meridian) or (Utter Total Merde) and I started ruminating about what a nice name Greenwich is ; modest, original, very British and just bloody nice.
As it was the night watch where I am not supervised, I started mucking about with the old electronic chart plotter and I had a sudden thought:
"Where does Greenwich go ??" Moreover, "Where does it come from ??"
(This is the sort of stupid offshore oil night shift conversation you would have with friend, Rich Rickett)
So after a lot o' button pressing until I could get it right, I discovered that from the top, the old Greenwich meridian is born out of the Norwegian sea, misses Shetland, misses Scotland (thank god), passes through Grimsby (we could not call it the Grimsby Meridian - yuk !), passes through Greenwich (surprise) and then on through Brighton (Brighton Meridian - bit garish).
It then passes through France (nowhere of note), Spain (Costa Blanco ??), Africa (Algeria and Ghana) and then down through the South Atlantic, passing close to the Sandwich Islands.
So it misses anywhere of note and passes through Greenwich.
Well, after all that, it has to be Greenwich Meridian, n'est ca pas ??
Anyway I am bored, so whilst everyone is sleeping, I am oft to the Eastern hemisphere to get a sausage, lets hope I don't get caught...
Amok out
P.S
Famous last words uttered by an over 100 year old St Helenian lady exiled in Canada for most of her life:
"Take my love to St Helena"
Fair made me weep.
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